Fragments of your son’s likeness remind me of the end of things. They’re a warning of violations to come.

You’re the Patron Saint of Archaeology. Did you ever imagine this?
It was procuring the True Cross that helped you come out on top.

Your claims endorse a desire to possess the material stuff of origins. They champion the transformation of meaning into property.

You’re a Founding Mother of the Modern World.

The expansion of your order has survived the Fall of Rome, sprawling across the pagan earth, carving it up, repackaging it, staking claims and relocating foreign artifacts, destroying languages, cultures, contexts, all forms of historical record.

It doesn’t seem to matter that your boy killed his eldest son. His dream of victory under the sign of the cross remains. You’ve passed it on as if it were a public inheritance, an obtainable object, a thing to be taken by any means necessary.